


Lose another one

by xxx_cat_xxx



Series: Whumping Tony Stark [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Arc Reactor, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hugs, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, Irondad, Light Angst, Mentions of Canonical Character Deaths, Nausea, Pain, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Sickfic, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Vomiting, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 12:58:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17386883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/pseuds/xxx_cat_xxx
Summary: That night Peter finds himself standing at the window, unable to sleep, staring at the snowflakes that are slowly morphing the compound from a boring grey into a fairytale landscape. Tony had woken up groggily shortly after they´d reached back, and Bruce and Friday had to threaten to lock him out of the lab in order to make him stay in bed and rest.“Traitor,” Tony had growled at the ceiling, and Peter had grinned, and then he´d sat on the edge of the bed while Tony talked him through fixing his glove, pretending not to see the way his right hand was still massaging his chest every now and then, and for a moment things had seemed okay.orThe arc reactor acts up, everyone worries, and Peter finally receives his hug (although it doesn´t quite manage to drive away the sadness).





	Lose another one

The drone is larger than any Peter´s ever seen before. It looks nearly awe-inspiring when it is encased by Iron Man´s repulsor blasts and ignites in a series of explosions. But then an energy ray strikes the chest piece of Tony´s armour, causing the arc reactor´s glow to fade, and it all goes downhill from there.

When Peter makes a hard and hasty landing on the ground, Tony is already on his feet again, impatiently waving a hand at him.

“Follow me,” Peter hears him rasp hoarsely in his ear piece, and it doesn´t need the slightly-off tone in his voice for Peter´s spider senses to dial up.

“Are you alright?” he asks while hurrying to keep up with Tony´s jog. His glove is torn, a finger bleeding sluggishly, and he must have bashed his knee somewhere, because he can feel himself limping.

“Don´t call the others,” he gets a cut-off reply, and then Tony must have muted his mike, because the panting breaths Peter´s been hearing stop all of the sudden.

They don´t make it far into the forest before Tony starts to sway on his feet, visibly having problems walking a straight line.

Peter is about to call him out on it, but Tony´s legs are already giving out under him. He sinks to his knees, bracing one arm against a tree strunk, before doubling over. His helmet withdraws, and Peter can just make out his stark white face in the last shimmers of evening light.

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony starts to reply, but instead of words he brings up a mouthful of vomit. His upper body seems to vanish and then return for moments in the pale-blue flickering of the arc reactor´s light.

Peter can see little white clouds of air leaving his mentor´s lips in rapid succession. He takes a step forward, torn between the urge to help and the wish to give him some privacy.

“Mr. Stark, is this – are you having a panic attack?”

Tony doesn’t answer, too busy throwing up again. He clutches his chest with his free hand, still retching, his face contorting in sudden agony. He seems to be unable to stay upright, listing to the side until Peter catches him in an awkward angle against his chest and slowly lowers him to the ground.

“Oh, shit,” Peter´s brains runs frantically, searching for the right words, the right actions, his heart pounding so hard that he can feel it till his fingertips.

“I, uhm, we´re here, near New York, we had a fight, but we are save now -”

“F - fucking know where I am,” Tony can´t resist to press out between gritted teeth. “Just…”

His trembling hand reaches for the hidden switch that opens the suit. He sure as hell didn´t want to do this in front of the kid, but timing is not on his side today, or ever, for that matter.

His vision is getting increasingly blurred. Peter is nothing but a whisp of red and blue, but luckily his fingers don´t need sight to find the outline of the reactor, twist it a little and take it out of his chest. Blue energy frizzles around the tip of his thumb.

The relief is instantaneous. The chest pain doesn´t vanish, but Tony stops feeling like he is actively dying, the nausea decreases to a minimum, and he can finally take a deep breath.

He lies there, eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of oxygen flooding his veins and the buzzing in his head slowly dying down. It´s only Peter´s panicking voice that pulls im out of the haze.

“Please, are you awake?“ Tony squints upwards, momentarily surprised at the presence of another human being. The expression on the kid´s face is pure terror.

“Oh god, why would you do that?”

“Do what?” Tony grunts.

“The arc reactor, why did you take it out?”

Tony has to think about that for a moment, his mind still catching up with the events.

“Oh, that. It overcharged, that bastard of a drone pulled some trick I wasn´t expecting.”

“Can you put it back in now?” Peter´s voice is impatient, still on the brink of tripping over itself.

“It should decharge on its own, just give it a moment,” Tony reassures.

Peter doesn´t seem convinced. He gives Tony a sceptical glance, chewing on his lower lip. Tony knows that this is probably owed to him not having the best reputation of self-care, but honestly-

“Come on, I´m the one with trust issues,” he teases, but the grin Peter gives in reply is half-hearted at best.

He makes to sit, grabbing Peter´s arm for support when the dizziness dials up again.

“Huh.” He takes a deep breath. “Wow, this is how it feels to be a high voltage plant?”

Peter doesn´t even laugh, his eyes darting to and fro between Tony´s face and the arc reactor in his hand. There´s bit of dirt and ice on it, and he absent-mindedly rubs it clean with numb fingers.

“Kid, quit looking at me like that. I´ll be okay if I take it out for a few minutes,” Tony adds in a more sober tone, although the greying edges around his vision tell him that his few minutes are nearly over. “Scout´s honour. ”

\---

Half an hour later, Bruce is sitting with Peter in a van that is slowly making its way back to the compound through a New York clouded by icy rain.

Tony is lying on a gurney, out like a light. He´d stumbled to the vehicle on shaky legs, insisting that he was fine, and had only grumpily let Bruce check him over while Pete distracted him with tech talk, just to fade out on them less than five minutes into the ride.

He is fine, as Bruce assured Peter several times, or at least Tony´s definition of it. But his heart has taken a heavy shock during the drone´s attack and the aftershocks are still catching up with him, causing his blood pressure to fall through the basement. He looks almost peaceful now, apart from the slim oxygen tube leading to his nose and the cuff fixed around his upper arm.

“But does anyone even know how it works? What if something happens, how to fix it… “

Peter shakes Bruce out of his thoughts.

“Friday´s got all the data saved. Tony might be the best in the field, but there are quite a few engineers that could help fixing it even if he´s incapacitated.” _If Tony lets them,_ he thinks, but he doesn´t say that out loud. “He´s gonna be okay, kid, we are taking good care of him.”

Peter nods, but it´s the kind of nod Bruce knows all too well from himself, one lacking any conviction.

He´s going to have a word with Tony.

\---

That night Peter finds himself standing at the window, unable to sleep, staring at the snowflakes that are slowly morphing the compound from a boring grey into a fairytale landscape.

Tony had woken up groggily shortly after they´d reached back, and Bruce and Friday had to threaten to lock him out of the lab in order to make him stay in bed and rest.

“Traitor,” Tony had growled at the ceiling, and Peter had grinned, and then he´d sat on the edge of the bed while Tony talked him through fixing his glove, pretending not to see the way his right hand was still massaging his chest every now and then.

Tony had needed his reading glasses to see the small bits and pieces, and Peter had called him grandpa, causing Bruce to laugh so hard he nearly turned green. The arc reactor had been glowing steadily, and for a moment things had seemed okay.

He´d excused himself soon after, citing homework as a reason. And now here he was, staring at the snow like it could tell him what´s wrong with him, what´s causing his chest to feel tight and his breaths to stock every here and there.

Maybe it was the casuality with which Tony had removed the device that´s keeping him alive, as if it wasn´t just more than another _thing_ , something of not more value to Tony than any other of his machines.

His neck warns him with a tickling even before he can hear the footsteps.

“Shouldn´t you be resting?” he asks when Tony rounds the corner. He still looks paler than he usually does, and Peter notices that he is staying close to the wall, legs a little unstable.

“I could ask you the same thing, Spider-kid,” he replies.

“How are you?” Peter asks instead of giving an answer.

“I´m great, I´m peachy.“

“Yeah,” Peter mumbles, biting his lip. He concentrates on the pattern the snow flakes leave on the window pane.

“What´s up, Spiderling? Doesn´t suit you, this grumpy sort of silence.” Tony eyes him with an intensity that´s usually reserved for tricky bits of code or wire.

Peter evades his gaze, but he notices when Tony doesn´t walk up till the window, sinking down into an armchair instead with visible relief.

“How are you, really?”

“I told, you, I´m fine. I´m always fine.” Tony says in a dismissive tone, slightly annoyed. Something about it suddenly makes Peter feel incredibly angry.

“You always say this,” he blurts out. “And then you nearly get electrocuted, or you die from a heart attack, and…I…I just stand there - and -”

He doesn´t want to shout, to fight, to make more of a fool of himself. He knows that his mentor has stayed alive, more or less, for 50 years without his supervision. But the words are out before he can stop himself.

There´s a long silence before Tony starts to speak.

“I do understand you,“ he finally says, and Peter hears the _but_ even before the next words leave his mouth.

“I would like to promise you that things will change, that I´ll take care of myself, that I´ll keep my nose out of all the dangerous stuff. But honestly, what´s the sense of raising false expectations?” Tony draws in a breath, a little shaky, and Peter is almost sure that this has nothing to do with his heart condition.

“Yeah, I get it.” And he does, he sees the layers of Tony´s fears and obligations, his pride and responsibilities, doesn´t see _through_ them exactly, but he understands that it´s not his place to expect anything more than what he has already received. But still…

Something childish in Peter just wants to urge him to promise it anyways, just wants to hear the words from his mouth, eventhough he knows that they can´t become true.

He turns away, back to the window, hoping that the room is too dark for Tony to see his reflection in the glass. Maybe this is just part of growing up, he thinks, the knowledge that at some point, nobody you love is safe anymore.

“Hey.” Tony´s voice is a little softer now. He gets up with a groan, rests a hand on Peter´s shoulder.

“Listen, kid. I might be a grandpa to you, but I can take care of myself. And contrary to popular belief, I don´t have an active interest in kicking the bucket anytime soon.”

“I know,” Peter says. “It´s just…” _It´s just that that nobody ever planned to leave. They were just gone, from one moment to the next._

He stubbornly blinks away a tear, feeling infinitely silly. It falls nonetheless, leaving a wet spot on the window sill.

And then Tony is there, finally, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him towards his chest. It´s the closest thing to a hug Peter has ever received from him.

“I can’t lose another one,” he whispers.

“I know,“ Tony says, a hint of sadness in his tone when his arms tighten fast around Peter and make the world seem a little bit less insecure. “I´ll try. I´ll try my best, I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt: _I know you probably have a lot on your plate and many prompts in your inbox, but literally one of my absolute favourite tropes ever is "Tony taking out the Arc Reactor to look at it for a moment and because he's him and hasn't actually explained a lot about it to people those around watching him suddenly pop it out his chest for no reason have a mini panic". Could you maybe do a fic with this with Tony and Peter?_
> 
> Comments always make me happy. If you liked this, feel free to follow me on [tumblr](https://xxx-cat-xxx.tumblr.com/).


End file.
